


to know yourself

by Werepirechick



Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Family, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Growing Up, Inktober 2018, Pride, Self-Acceptance, Self-Discovery, Team as Family, Trans Character, but then it turned into a fic about him being trans too, originally this was just going to be about raph struggling with being big and spiky as a little kid, the rottmnt fam is a good fam, they love and support each other and its Good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 16:14:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16287782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Werepirechick/pseuds/Werepirechick
Summary: Raph both does and doesn’t understand, when she’s young, why dad won’t pack her around like the others.





	to know yourself

**Author's Note:**

> i didn't set out to write this fic so soon, but it happened on its own and, well. here it is! thanks inktober for kicking me into gear with it. this was done for the prompt "growing". <333
> 
> shout out to my own family for being so accepting and loving as i figured out my own gender and sexuality stuff, and shout out to all the people who don't get that kind of unconditional acceptance. yall deserve everything.

Raph both does and doesn’t understand, when she’s young, why dad won’t pack her around like the others.

“Le- Mich- _red child,”_ Splinter says, exasperated with his own inability to say the right name. He gently pulls Raph’s hands off his robe. “I can’t right now. I’m too tired from carrying your brothers.”

“But- I wanna turn,” she pleads, because it’s not _fair_ , she wants to get carried by their dad, too. _Mikey_ gets carried all the time, and so does Leo- Donnie doesn’t much, because he likes to walk on his own, but when they’re walking through somewhere Raph’s brother might hurt his shell, Donnie gets scooped up and packed along until its safe.

It’s not _fair._ Everyone else gets a turn, why can’t _she?_

Her pop readjusts her red scarf, running a paw over her bumpy head he’s done. Raph only has to lift her chin a little to meet Splinter’s eyes, standing at level with his chest.

“Tomorrow,” he promises, patting Raph’s head. “Let me rest my back tonight. I will give you piggyback tomorrow.”

Raph mumbles an agreement, scuffing her foot on the ground. Her dad shuffles over to their sleeping pile for tonight, slipping into his sleeping bag and curling up in it with a grunt and sigh. Mikey is already passed out in his own swaddle of blankets, plus his oversized orange hoodie helping swallow him up, and Raph tries not to feel jealous of Splinter reaching out and drawing her youngest brother in to sleep next to him.

The tunnel they’re sleeping in today is warm and dry, but too exposed to linger long. They’ll probably be here just a few hours, long enough to sleep and rest, and then they’ll keep moving. Raph’s backpack of things is by the sleeping pile, and she’s tempted to go pull out her sleeping bag, try snuggling in next to dad and Mikey and hope she doesn’t poke them.

But, her sleeping bag is starting to be full of holes again. Every time Splinter patches one, Raph’s stupid shell spikes make another two. She doesn’t want to deal with that yet.

Raph wanders around the bend of the tunnel, following the sounds of Donnie and Leo playing ball. They’re well within earshot of their dad’s excellent hearing, so she doesn’t feel nervous about being out of sight.

“Can I play?” she asks, watching her brothers kick their slightly deflated ball back and forth.

Leo catches the ball with his foot, curling his toes around it to hold it still. “Sure!” he says, smiling and kicking it towards her.

Raph grins and kicks the ball hard as she can- sending it flying down the tunnel faster than anyone can react. They all stare after it for a moment, then Donnie and Leo both groan loudly.

“Now we gotta go _get it,_ Raph,” Donnie says in an irritated voice.

“You kicked it, you go get it,” Leo orders, pointing the ball rolling to a stop a long way down the tunnel.

“But I didn’ mean to-”

“You kicked it! You gotta get it!”

“It’s the rules, Raph,” Donnie says seriously, arms crossed. Leo crosses his own, his blue ball cap slipping sideways as he nods firmly.

Raph clenches her fists by her sides, embarrassment making her face hot. “…But I didn’t mean to kick it that far,” she says in a quiet voice.

“Still gotta get it,” Leo huffs. Raph’s stomach twists in knots at the looks her brothers are giving her; frustration and annoyance that she messed up the game.

“Okay,” she says, not letting her voice hitch, and starts walking towards the ball. “Sorry,” she adds as she passes them.

Donnie sighs. “It’s fine, just don’t kick it so hard.”

“And be more careful, ‘cause we only got one,” Leo adds.

Raph nods, but- she hadn’t _meant_ to kick the ball quite that hard. She wanted to kick it hard, but not _hard_. She’d just been trying to imitate the amount of concentration and effort Leo and Donnie were putting into their kicks.

Raph kicks the ball along the floor all the way back, taking care to only give it light taps with her toes. It still rolls a fair distance just with that, and she has to jog to keep up with it on and off. By the time she gets back with it, Raph doesn’t feel quite so awful, and is ready to keep playing.

 

-/-

 

When they all get bored of the game, Donnie picks up the ball and puts it under his arm. “I’m tired,” he announces bluntly. “Can we go sleep now?”

They were already all worn out from the night’s scavenging and traveling, and playing even after that used up the last of their energy. No one disagrees with Donnie’s suggestion to go curl up next to dad and Mikey.

Except, as they round the bend back to their sleep spot, Mikey is wide awake and Splinter looks very _annoyed_ to be wide awake. When he sees them approaching, he stands up, grabs Mikey around the waist, and marches over to Raph.

“Please,” he says, placing Mikey in Raph’s arms, “Raphaela, I _need_ to sleep. Watch your brother for me.”

“Uh,” Raph says, balancing Mikey and leaning away from her brother’s claws tugging on her scarf. She sees how tired their dad is, and thinks about how much work Splinter did all night for them. “…Yeah, ‘kay.”

“Thank you,” Splinter sighs, and immediately returns to his sleeping bag; going in headfirst and curling up in a ball inside. Just the tip of his tail is still visible. Leo and Donnie look at Raph holding Mikey for a moment, and then mutually decide it’s not their problem. They both drag their sleeping bags out of their packs and shove them next to one another, going to sleep practically on top of each other and leaving Raph with a wide awake three year old who won’t sleep for ages, probably.

Stupid little brothers. Raph kinda _did_ want to sleep, but…

“Raph,” Mikey says, cupping Raph’s cheeks and smiling, “can we play hide n’ seek?”

“…Weren’t you really sleepy earlier?” Raph says.

Mikey nods.

“Don’tchu wanna sleep _more?”_ Raph tries.

“Nope,” Mikey answers. His pleading look doesn’t waver.

Raph sighs. This is a fight she already knows she’ll lose.

“Yeah, okay, Mikey. Let’s play.”

Mikey cheers quietly and then wriggles out of her grasp, slipping out of his loose hoodie as he does. He drops onto the floor, head barely making it to Raph’s chest as he stands on his own two feet. Mikey doesn’t hesitate to go running off, and Raph, because she’s the biggest and oldest sibling, follows after like she’s been told to. She ties Mikey’s hoodie around her neck as she goes, just in case her littlest brother gets cold while they play.

There aren’t many places to ‘hide’ in the tunnel, but they give it their best shot. Mikey has better luck finding debree to scrunch down behind, since he can tuck his arms and legs into his shell and is so tiny still. Raph is double the size of any hiding place she finds. It sucks, and she _wants_ to get upset and call off the game, but Mikey is her baby brother and she _has_ to be the mature one.

She wishes she weren’t so much bigger than everyone else. Raph wants to get carried by pop, and be allowed to just lie down and sleep like Leo and Donnie, and not mess up at games so much. She’d also like it if her stupid shell spikes would stop ruining her blankets and coats all the time; it’s hard to find good stuff to stay warm, and Splinter never says anything about it, but Raph _knows_ she makes more work for scavenging new supplies.

Raph wishes she were smaller and less spiky. She wants to… to fit in better, with her brothers. Sometimes she feels like her insides are all twisted up, thinking about how she doesn’t fit in. She doesn’t like being the biggest, doesn’t like being the spikiest and the only one with big sharp teeth _, really_ doesn’t like being the only girl-

Raph doesn’t like being herself, sometimes.

She tries not to think about that.

After the umpteenth time she goes looking for Mikey, she finds him curled up in his shell inside a sagging cardboard box. His head doesn’t pop out immediately when she exclaims _“Found you!”_ and a beat later, Raph realizes her little brother is softly snoring.

Oh, finally.

Raph reaches into the box, picking up Mikey easily and cradling her brother to her chest. So… maybe there are some things that are good about being so much bigger and stronger than her brothers. Raph knows Leo and Donnie couldn’t carry Mikey; they can’t lift nearly as much as Raph can. Raph is the one who helps their pop carry lots of their important supplies, and she’s the one who’s trusted to keep her little brothers out of trouble, too.

Maybe it’s not all bad, being the biggest and strongest. The sharp and spiky part, though…

After Raph tucks Mikey into his blankets and hoodie again, in the opening of their dad’s sleeping bag, she hears her own bag make an ever irritating ripping sound as she tries to slide in. She scowls, a frustrated hiss escaping her through her sharp teeth, and shoves herself the rest of the way in.

 

-/-

 

Raph both does and doesn’t understand, when she’s a bit older, why she’s a little different than her brothers.

She’s eight and has broader knowledge of herself and her family. They have a real home now, have for a few years, and its let them have time to start school type things.

Raph knows her full name is Raphaela, but only their pop calls her that, when he’s not resorting to calling her _‘red’_ after the third time he gets a name wrong. She knows they all used to be regular pet turtles, she and her brothers, and she knows she’s a snapping turtle. Snapping turtles are bigger, heavier, and spikier than any of the turtle types her brothers are, and that’s… just a fact about her.

It’s also just a fact that ‘female’ turtles grow bigger and faster than ‘male’ turtles, and part of her is proud about that. Part of Raph puffs up and feels _great;_ having the highest notch in the wall for height measurements, being able to lift all her brothers at once, and holding every single eating contest record.

It feels less good when it gets pointed out, the reasons _why_ she’s bigger than her brothers. But. That’s fine. It’s fine.  So what if she’s the only girl and sometimes feels left out, or gets all weird and uncomfortable inside whenever Donnie factually points out her advantages over them all? No big deal.

It’s no big deal that she’s big and the Big Sister. It’s really not.

Except when things like this happen.

“Why can’t I come in?” Raph asks again.

“You’re too big, _duh,”_ Leo replies from inside the fort. “We made it us size, not you size!”

“And read the sign,” Donnie adds, sticking a hand out of the blankets covering their taped up boxes, pointing one clawed finger at the newspaper stuck to the front. In Donnie’s neatly exacting handwriting (signed in all capitals at the bottom by Leo as well) he’s written _No Girls Allowed._

“…Why can’t girls come in?” Raph asks. She cranes her neck, peeking through the gap between the blankets and the floor. Inside, she meets the eyes of Mikey, who is also on the ground and looking out. “Mikey? How come girls can’t come in?”

“Iunno,” Mikey says, sounding confused. “Leon and Don made the rules, not me.”

“Girls just don’t go in forts,” Leo says firmly, tugging the blankets down further and cutting off Raph’s view inside. “Boys get the boys club and girls have their girls club, like on TV. Go make your own clubhouse, Raph.”

“But I wanna come inside yours,” Raph tries again.

“No!” Leo half-shouts.

“But-”

“You just can’t,” Donnie says.

“I-”

“Sorry, Raph,” Mikey mumbles.

Raph’s eyes are burning and her chest feels too tight. As the first tears of frustration start to prickle in the corners of her eyes, Raph yells, “ _FINE!_ And- and your fort looks stupid, so- so whatever! Its garbage and I don’t need it anyway!”

She’s so angry it hurts. Her face is hot and her eyes are hot and her stomach is in horrible seething knots. Raph grabs the blanket on impulse and tears it right out from under the books weighing it down on top. Her brothers all cry out as their fort is destroyed, and Raph goes storming off with thick tears rolling down her face.

 

-/-

 

Splinter finds Raph not long after.

She’s in her room, hiding under her big comforter. It’s the one with superheroes on it; she picked it out herself on trip to the surface. She had to haggle with Mikey about him not having it for a whole hour, because they both really love Justice League. Raph likes almost everything her brothers do, does all the same stuff- but she’s still _different_ and it makes her hurt awful and deep inside.

She hears someone open her door, hears the telltale slide of a tail on the carpet, and feels weight settle on her mattress next to her. Raph stays under her comforter, sniffling and holding onto her anger.

“Raphaela, come out from under there. We cannot talk if I cannot see your face.”

“I don’ wanna come out,” Raph mumbles.

“Why not?”

“’cause you’re gonna be mad at me.”

Splinter huffs. “I am not mad, my daughter. I am just disappointed in you and your brothers’ behavior.”

“That’s _worse,”_ Raph cries, tears coming all over again as the shame hits once more. She keeps crying, even as Splinter’s paw starts rubbing up and down her shell- only able to do so through the comforter, the thick fabric protecting his skin from her sharp spikes.

That thought makes Raph cry harder.

As she’s sobbing, the comforter is gently pulled off of her. Splinter puts a paw on her arm, asking with a soft tug for her to sit up. Raph- hurts, feels terrible, wants to stay under her blankets and _never_ come out again- sits up gingerly, hunched on herself and sniffling loudly. Even sitting down, she’s bigger than Splinter, and that makes everything so much harder to handle all over again.

“There, there,” Splinter says, putting his arms around her, like they have any hope of holding her properly. It still- helps. It helps to be held by her pop. It slows the turmoil inside Raph and lets it start to settle. The burning shame recedes bit by bit, until her eyes slowly dry, and then it’s okay again.

She’s okay. It’ll be fine.

“Good, no more tears. Crying is such a waste of water,” Splinter says, whiskers twitching against Raph’s scales. He pats her sides and sits back, not out of reach, but enough to look up at her face. “Now, Raphaela. I have already heard your brothers’ side of the story- three times over. Tell me yours so we can resolve this matter and I can go back to cooking dinner.”

“…I’m sorry wrecked their fort,” Raph says, shame for her actions returning. “I didn’t mean to.”

“And yet, it is in pieces.” Splinter’s yellow eyes regard her calmly. “Unfortunately, my daughter, simply not _meaning_ to hurt someone does not erase the hurt done. Why did you feel the need to wreck the fort, Raphaela?”

“They wouldn’t let me _in_ , an’ that’s not fair!” Raph exclaims hotly. “Just- just ‘cause I’m a girl they were gonna exclude me. I just wanted to play, too, and they wouldn’t let me.”

“Ah, yes, the old ‘no girls allowed’ rule,” Splinter says, patting Raph’s knee. “That was wrong of them to do that, no excuse. But… boys do that, at that age. I myself did not understand until I was older why the girls in my class I said that to would get so upset.”

“It’s stupid,” Raph says, looking away from her dad. “I- I never do that to them. I like playing all together.”

“And that makes you the better person,” Splinter says. “I am not at all saying that your brothers were right to exclude you. They were very much wrong.”

“It’s just that boys act differently than girls,” Raph mutters bitterly.

“Eh… it is more that boys are _taught_ to act differently than girls.” Splinter makes a quiet noise of annoyance. “I will have to find a new channel for you kids to watch. Blue told me the ‘Teletoon’ channel is where they got this idea from.”

“I don’t get it. Why do girls gotta be excluded? Why do _I_ have to be excluded?”

“They do not, _you_ do not. I think, however, that your brothers are trying to… grow up, in a sense. You are their big sister; it is natural that they will want to challenge you at times. You are older, and larger, and do many things they cannot. Brothers and sisters fight, Raphaela. All siblings do. You will all get past this.”

Raph draws away from Splinter, even as the kind words calm some of her hurt feelings. She tucks her knees to her plastron, wrapping her arms around them and hiding most of her face in her big red scarf.

“I know,” she mumbles. Splinter reaches over and runs his paw up and down her leg, over the spines that grow from her shins.

“It is tough to be a lone girl in an all-boys family, is it not, my daughter?” he says, obviously meaning that sympathetically, but still. The words make Raph’s stomach knot up and twist once more.

“What if… I don’t wanna be?”

“What did you say? You are mumbling.”

“I said…” Raph takes a breath and lifts her chin, looking at her dad, searching for answers why she feels- like _this_ all the time. “What, um. What if I don’t wanna be the only girl?”

Her pop blinks at her. He seems faintly surprised by the question.

“I hope you do not mean I should adopt another daughter,” he says warily.

Raph hurries to correct the misunderstanding. “ _No,_ no I- I mean, um, what if I, sometimes kinda, you know… don’t wanna be a girl?”

She fidgets in the quiet after she’s spoken. Raph almost wants to yank the words back into herself and never talk about them again. They don’t make _sense,_ not to her, not to anyone, _definitely_ not to her dad-

“I… hm.” Splinter puts a hand to his chin, considering. “I do not know. No on I ever knew personally had such feelings.”

“Sorry,” Raph says quickly.

“No, no, this is not something you need to apologize for. I think,” Splinter says, seeming a bit uncertain but… not angry, or dismissive. “Only sometimes you do not want to be a girl?”

“Mostly just… I dunno. Sometimes, a lot, I don’t- I dunno. It just happens. Whenever.”

Splinter thinks harder, one ear twitching. “Well, I cannot say I know what that is, my- child. There was a man we called _okama_ in my neighborhood as a boy, but- do not ever use that word!” Splinter fixes a stern finger and look on Raph as he says that. “I did not know as a young man what a cruel word that is. You must not ever say it, about yourself or others.”

Raph nods, filing it under the words she’s not supposed to say.  Splinter nods as well, maybe to himself. He’s silent for a moment, giving Raph a long look she can’t decipher the meaning of, before saying, “I will ask Donatello to help me with the, uh… intranet? That world wide web. We will look into what your feelings mean, Raphaela.”

“Thanks, dad,” she says, a little breathless for some reason. When Splinter gesture for her to come close again, she does, and doesn’t mind at all that her pop is tiny in her arms.

“Let us go find your brothers. Apologies are in order, from all four of you.”

 

-/-

 

It takes a bit of time. Finding the right sites, the right information resources- finding the _right_ Raph hasn’t quite ever had, something in his chest always fitting kinda sideways in an uncomfortable and wrong way.

It’s nice to just… feel good. To be _himself_.

Practically nothing changes otherwise, although it takes a bit of time for his family to stop using _she_ or _her_ accidentally. Raph doesn’t mind. It’s okay, because he knows they don’t mean anything by the mistakes, and that they accept him for who he is.

Though, there remains one problem.

“What about ‘Alistair’?” Leo asks, jabbing a finger at a page of his book.

“That’s a vampire name,” Mikey says, seeming very serious about that as he turns his head and looks at Leo’s name book.

“No duh,” Leo replies, nudging Mikey’s shoulder with his. They’re splitting the beanbag, squished together since they’re the smallest of them and can still do that. “It’s _cool,_ an’ Raph already has the teeth like a vampire.”

Raph pokes his bottom lip with his pointy teeth. Well, Leo’s not wrong. “I don’t wanna be a vampire, though,” he says.

“But it sounds cool!”

“You can change your name to Alistair, then, Leon,” Donnie says dryly from behind his bulky and beat up laptop, sitting up on Raph’s bed, since it’s his bedroom they’re all collected in for this. “Hey, Raph. How about ‘Octavio’?”

Raph wrinkles his flat nose. Donnie sees the expression and rolls his eyes. “Guess I’ll keep looking.”

“Why d’you wanna change your name anyway?” Mikey asks, shutting his his Gameboy, which is technically everyone’s, but Mikey’s the one who decorated it with sparkly stickers and keeps it in his room. He’s looking at Raph with his head at an angle, like he’s trying to puzzle something out. “Like, you can be a boy still and stuff, but I like your name.”

“’s gonna be weird to switch, too,” Leo mumbles under his breath. Raph’s face feels a little hot and he looks down at the baby names book in his lap.

“…I know, and- I like it, too,” Raph confesses. “But, all the sites said people change their names when they transition, an’…” How does he explain, without sounding weird, that he’s worried about them seeing him as not enough of a boy? If he doesn’t have a boy’s name, then no one will get that he’s a _he_ , and after everything Raph’s been doing to work this out and understand himself he just. _Can’t do that._ He feels sickly, thinking about explaining that in a way his brothers will get.

“Well,” Donnie says, pushing his laptop screen down enough he can look at them all, “you know there’s a boy version of Raphaela, right?”

They all blink at Donnie. Their brother sighs, wearing his _‘you’re all being dumb’_ expression.

“You just drop the A of your name and it becomes a boy name, Raph,” Donnie says.

“…R’phaela?” Mikey questions.

“Raphela?” Leo asks.

Donnie gives them a deeply frustrated look. “The _last_ A, the _end_ of the name. _Guys._ ”

“We’re joking,” Leo says.

“ _Duh_ we know that,” Mikey adds, sticking out his tongue.

_“Uuuuuugh.”_

“I’d just drop the A?” Raph asks, and his younger siblings stop their bickering.

“Uh, yeah,” Donnie says, closing his laptop and setting it aside. He crawls across the bed and leans over the edge, looking down at Raph. “Do you like that idea?”

“Um… I… I think so,” Raph says, turning over the name in his head and feeling it out. It’s… it’s still his name, but a little different. Like he’s still him, just a little different. He smiles slowly.

“I can still get called ‘Raph’,” he says happily.

“Good,” Leo sighs. “It was cool sounding, but Iunno what kinda nickname we’d use if you were Alistair.”

“Ally? Stairs? Staircase?” Mikey suggests in quick order.

“Oh, those are good. Raph be Alistair, actually.”

“Nope,” Raph says, crossing his arms and huffing proudly. “I like Raphael. You can be Alistair.”

Mikey sits up straighter, stealing the names book from Leo and saying, “Ooh, then can I be Mon- Montgumair- _Montgomery?”_

“Uh… I guess? Why you wanna be- uh…”

“Mont-gom-er-ree. Montgomery. It sounds _fancy,_ like a, uh, old cool adventurer type guy _.”_ Mikey smiles, pleased with himself. “Now Donnie picks one.”

“Donatello,” Donnie says immediately.

“A _different name.”_

“Donatella,” Donnie says.

“That’s _barely_ a different name,” Leo complains as Mikey frowns at their brother.

Donnie shrugs. “Raph dropped his A, so I’m stealing it. He doesn’t want it anyway- right, Raph?”

“Nah,” Raph says easily, raising a fist towards Donnie. His brother bumps his own against it. “I don’t need it, so you can have it.”

“Why thank you,” Donnie says with a quirk of his lips. Mikey and Leo scold them for not playing the game right, but Raph is too busy feeling warm and gooey inside.

Raphael. Yeah. That feels about right.

 

-/-

 

Raph does understand, finally, when he’s halfway full grown, why he had so much trouble with his own body growing up.

A bunch of it had to do with his confusion about his gender. It doesn’t matter how little it mattered or came up, it still… bungled things, in small but meaningful ways. Like missing one step on the way up a staircase and slipping, banging your knee, and having to limp up the rest of the way. He could do it, yeah, but it sucked sometimes.

It didn’t help that he was a mutant turtle. It didn’t help that none of his brothers were the same species of turtle, or sex, either. Donnie, Leo, Mikey- they didn’t get it. They all loved each other, right down to the bone, but none of them could understand the things Raph was dealing with back then.

He was growing faster than his sense of self could keep up. Shooting up whole inches and packing on muscle, towering over his siblings and their dad before he was even ten.

The discomfort of being a giant, all spiky and sharp and strong, didn’t go away immediately, even after he figured himself out better. Even with the right pronouns, there were always moments here and there that just- tripped him up.

But that’s probably just life. Raph had his problems, his brothers had and have theirs. God knows Donnie struggled, being tiny and intelligent and frustratingly vulnerable in a way no one else was. A young genius mutant turtle, with no access to the true schooling he deserved and a shell that did nothing to protect him… anyone would end up indignant and prickly like that.

And Leo. Not quite an older kid, not quite a younger kid. Just clever enough to come up with the best schemes, and not quite smart enough to get himself back out of them. Chuck in that he’d spent most of his preteen years overcompensating for his lack of attraction to girls, and Leo ended up a mess of a turtle more nights than not.

Mikey… has always been weirdly even keeled, actually. Where the rest of them stumbled and flailed, Mikey sort of just coasted through. Raph doesn’t know if his youngest brother is like him or Leo in any sense, but… Mikey has plenty of time to figure that one out on his own, and they’ll all be here to support whatever verdict he arrives at.

At fifteen, Raph feels at home in himself, and has all the right words for the reasons why he didn’t as a kid. He’s caught up to his own growth, gotten a firm understanding of his own gender identity, and is mature enough to handle (most) of his personal issues that stem from those things.

It feels great. _He_ feels great. Raph is a great person, he knows he is, and he doesn’t let anything shake that sense of confidence. He worked hard for it, and he’s proud of who he is.

He’s the biggest, the strongest, the spikiest, and those facts are things that make him stand taller, smile wider. Raph has come a long way from who he used to be, but- to be honest?

He hasn’t changed much at all.

“Happy pride, fellow lady lover,” April says with a grin, chucking a handful of rainbow confetti into his face.

Raph blinks through the paper, shaking his head. It probably sticks to his mask as much as it does his scales. He fixes an amused look on his friend. “How long were you waitin’ to do that?”

“Since lunch,” April says, smiling and looking smug. She’s grinning so widely her painted lesbian flags on each cheek crinkle. “So worth the wait. Though, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna be findin’ confetti in my jacket for the next like, week or something.”

“Have enough left over for Leo?” Raph asks as they start to walk deeper into the lair. April scoffs.

“Like I’d come unprepared for all’a you guys,” she says. “I’m getting every single one of you.”

As she says that, Donnie comes out of an adjacent tunnel, nose practically pressed to his iPad as he walks. April wastes no time getting him right in the face with the physical manifestation of today’s celebration.

“Happy pride!” she and Raph cheer together.

Donnie blinks slowly, mouth in a line. Raph and April grin brightly at him, equally excited about today. Donnie sighs long-sufferingly.

“...Happy pride,” he says reluctantly. Raph cheers with April again, and scoops his little brother off his feet. Donnie is tense and surprised for a moment, but in the span seconds, after visible consideration on his face, he sighs and lets Raph hold him without a fight.

“Take me to the game room,” Donnie orders in monotone.

“We were goin’ that way anyway,” Raph grins. Donnie rolls his eyes and goes back to whatever he’s doing on his device; he barely acknowledges Raph or April the whole way to the game room, besides grunting when someone asks him something.

When they get there, weaving through the game cabinets to the sitting area in the back, Mikey and Leo are heckling each other over something no one other than the two of them would be able to understand. Whatever their bicker filled conversation is, it’s completely derailed by April bounding over and assaulting them with confetti. Mikey reacts by darting forwards and grabbing April around the waist, hoisting her up and laughing about their favorite lesbian finally arriving for the party.

“Put me _down,”_ April shrieks gleefully, clutching Mikey’s neck and head as he spins.

“ _Never!”_ Mikey shrieks back, his rainbow plastic bead necklaces swinging as they tussle.

“Hey, _hey_ \- watch the snack table!” Leo scolds, shielding the various treats they have for tonight. His admonishing frown is somewhat ruined by his red facial markings turned rainbows. Mikey’s handiwork with his face paints; Leo’s red stripes are conveniently the top color of the gay pride flag, so neither of them had been able to resist.

Raph doesn’t need as showy a representation for himself. He likes the woven necklace he made a few years back, using the colors of the trans flag for the string and bi flag colors for the interspersed beads.

“You can put me down now, you know.”

“Oh, right.” Raph remembers finally he’s still holding Donnie, and sets his brother down. As Donnie wanders away, eyes glued on his iPad, Raph spots a sticker on his brother’s current battle shell. Raph chuckles under his breath, smiling at the homemade _Still Questioning_ sticker Mikey undoubtedly made and stuck on their grumpy sibling. Donnie is tough to convince to open up, keeping almost all his cards close to his chest and only playing them when he’s _sure_ it won’t backfire.

After the whole Leo Isn’t Straight, Oh God The World Is Definitely Ending (at least for Leo) debacle, Raph started to notice a few similarities in Donnie. It’s nothing concrete, since Donnie is a cagey asshole about his feelings a lot of the time, but… Raph has a hunch.

Donnie will come out of his shell (ha, double pun) when he’s ready. Raph, and everyone else, too, will leave him be until then.

“Okay,” Donnie announces, reaching up on his tiptoes to grab the cord of the projector screen and pulling it down, “I have assembled a lineup of fan favorites tonight, which we should be able to burn through at optimal speed so long as no one drinks too much soda again and has to pee in the middle of the plot climax- Raph.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Raph says, lightly kicking his brother’s heels as he passes. He carefully sits down on his beanbag, quietly sighing in relief when he doesn’t hear any tearing. His shell spikes have only gotten sharper as he’s grown, and there are few fabrics that don’t wear out immediately for him. His specially made beanbag is made out of stitched together construction uniforms, durable and thick. A joint gift from Mikey and Leo one year for his birthday.

“So what’re we starting with?” April asks, flopping onto the couch with Mikey, the oldest and youngest people in the room tangling their legs across the middle and stealing the best pillows.

“Aw, guys, again?” Leo grumbles, grabbing at their legs and trying to free up his seat. “You always freaking do this, oh my god.”

“We’ll be kicking things off with ‘The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’,” Donnie says grandly, ordering his little projectorbot into position with his iPad. The spidery robot angles its lens up at the screen, and Donnie produces a cord (from somewhere unknowable in his belt pouches) to attach his iPad to it.

“Hey, Raph,” April says, poking his shoulder. “Pass me the twizzlers.”

Raph reaches and grabs the requested snack- only slightly stale, since they stockpiled all this within the last month- and steals a handful of the red sweets as he hands them off. She says thank you, and then April whacks Leo’s grabbing fingers with a twizzler. He hisses and retreats.

Mikey gets one before Leo, because he asks nicely. Raph laughs as April makes Leo say pretty please with a whole bunch of very specific toppings they know she likes, before she’ll hand over any of the sweets. Donnie meanwhile drags his beanbag into position, and detaches his battle shell for maximum comfort during the movie binge. Raph laughs again as Donnie spots the sticker on it and furrows his brow in confusion.

As the opening titles fade into beginning scene, a drag show with the main character on stage in a sparkling silver dress, they finally collectively settle down. Their little celebration isn’t exactly the New York pride parade, but it’s wholly theirs and plenty enough fun. Their dad will probably even wander in later and steal someone’s seat for himself, claiming to be here for just the snacks. (Which, might be half the truth, actually. Splinter’s grumpy and unspoken support for them all is appreciated anyway.)

Raph grabs the tub of popcorn off the table and leans back into his beanbag, feeling content with not just himself, but with his life as a whole.

**Author's Note:**

> me: its bad.  
> all of my betas: its good.  
> me: lies.
> 
> settle this debate in the comments below for us pls. and [hmu on tumblr for more lgbtmnt lol](https://onthespectrumwriting.tumblr.com/), 'cause i can't help myself from rubbing my gay little hands all over this series.


End file.
